TNAG-1332-FCO40-1762-Future-of-Hong-Kong-White-Paper-on-the-Joint-Declaration-1984 — Page 305

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EXPLAINING THE WHITE PAPER TO THE CHINESE

I believe that we should give serious thought to how and when we are going to explain to the Chinese the need to hold up publication of the initialled Joint Declaration and Annexes until our White Paper is ready for issue.

2.

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intialing.

The Chinese are now aware of the method by which we propose They Quand puglition to assess the acceptability of the agreement in Hong Kong.

White Paper, but are unlikely to be aware of what we intend to put in it. If we explain the elements of the White Paper, and our attempts to put the agreement in the best light possible from our point of view, they are unlikely to be impressed. They will presumably want the agreement to appear to be no more than our acceptance of what the Chinese had already decided to do with Hong Kong after 1997.

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3. We will therefore have to put the White Paper to the Chinese in the context of their own interests. We could do this by explaining that we must get the agreement through Hong Kong if we are to put it to Parliament and then sign. It will be much easier to do this if the agreement is first seen in Hong Kong in the context of the White Paper, which will explain it fully. We therefore need to delay publication for two days after initialling, although this will still be before the end of September. We should stress that it is vitally important that a text of the agreement does not leak -out before publication if it is to be seen in context in Hong Kong. This is as much in their interest as ours.

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The question is whether we should explain this to the Chinese in the near future in September. To explain it now will add to the Chinese view that we are prepared to capitulate on the remaining points and are only interested in presentation. However if we don't explain it now the Chinese will believe it is last minute footdragging by us and be more inclined to leak the agreement prior to publication. On the whole, therefore I think we should speak to the Chinese sooner rather than later.

17 August 1984

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